EXILED Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky was found dead in the bath at his Ascot mansion yesterday after apparently taking his own life.

The 67-year-old billionaire and former Kremlin power broker had lived in Britain since 2000 after falling out with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

Last year he lost a multi-billion-pound High Court battle with Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich, running up legal bills totalling many millions of pounds.

His press spokesman Lord Tim Bell said last night: ''I got a call from his lawyer saying he had died and I am waiting for further information."

Close friend Marina Litvinenko, whose husband Alexander was killed by polonium poisoning in London in 2006 , said: "This is very upsetting, shocking."

A Facebook postin from Mr Berezovsky's son-inlaw, Egor Schuppe, said the tycoon had become depressed and had failed to keep in contact with friends and acquaintances, preferring to stay at home in Berkshire.

Prominent Moscow lawyer Aleksander Dobrovinksy, claimed the tycoon had committed suicide. He said on his social network page: “Just got a call from London. Boris committed suicide. He was a diffi cult man. A move of disparity? Impossible to live poor? I am afraid no one will get to know now.”

Berezovsky acquired his fortune in the Nineties after the privatisation of state assets following the collapse of Soviet communism.

He became part of former Russian president Boris Yeltsin’s inner circle and was appointed deputy secretary of Russia’s security council.

He had survived several assassination attempts, including a 1994 bomb that decapitated his chauffeur.

British police officers cordon off a road near Boris Berezovsk's residence in Ascot

Impossible to live poor? A strike of blows? No one will know

Prominent Moscow lawyer Aleksander Dobrovinksy

In 2003 Litvinenko claimed there was a plot to kill Berezovsky but Hazel Blears, a Home Office minister at the time, said the information could not be substantiated.

In 2007 a hitman who had travelled to London was arrested “on suspicion of conspiracy to murder” and deported.

Berezovsky accused Putin of being behind the plot to shoot him. Last night a Thames Valley Police spokesman said: “Police have launched an investigation into the death of a 67-year-old man at a property in Ascot, Berkshire.

His death is currently being treated as unexplained and an inquiry is under way. The area has been cordoned off.”